Messages by Desiring God

Your pains and weaknesses are not obstacles to everything you want to accomplish, but the very instruments God uses to make you more like his Son.

The most basic distinction between the church and the world is not godly decisions, good deeds, or even true doctrines, but glad delight in God himself.

Wisdom from God is more valuable than gold. It may look foolish to a watching world, but the lasting path of happiness comes only in the guidance God gives.

What would John Piper say to those with most of their adult life ahead of them? Here are six rules he would live by.

When we come to Christ, we don’t lose our ethnic or cultural identities. But we all put on his insignia and find new possibilities for unity in him.

If you find Jesus boring or unsatisfying, you haven’t really discovered yet who he is.

Receiving Jesus as our greatest joy unlocks right standing with God and right living with others.

A one-of-a-kind death, and a one-of-a-kind resurrection, has been carried out by this one-of-a-kind Person who is more valuable than all else.

Christian preaching is not simply an exchange of information, but a channel through which the Holy Spirit works his miracles in both preacher and hearers.

Without the work of the Holy Spirit, we are helpless. Seek him, and he will rest upon you — especially in your hour of greatest need.

God created you not mainly to do things for him, but to delight in him. The more we enjoy God, the more he is honored, and our very purpose in life is fulfilled.

When you finally recognize that God wants to make you happier than you could ever dream, nothing will ever be the same again.

The supreme goal of all Jonathan Edwards’s life and work was that God would be glorified through his people being supremely satisfied in him.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017, marks the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation with Luther’s nailing of his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg.

When a Christian reads the Bible, a supernatural event takes place. Our regenerate souls meet the inspired word in a divine encounter.

Only what’s done for Christ will last. Any risk, any trial, any tribulation is worth the risk when your aim in all of life is to make others glad in God.

Sooner or later, every leader will hand off the baton to the next generation — and where better to center pastoral succession than in the word of God himself?

All the Bible knowledge in the world won’t help you unless you cherish God’s truth. We’re nothing more than Pharisees unless we taste the glory of God in his word.

No truth was more central to the Reformation that turned the world upside down 500 years ago: God justifies sinners by faith alone.

God works every dot on the timeline of history for his glory. Nothing stands outside the scope of his plan to bring fame to his name, for the joy of his people.

We often live as though we are God, but biblical thinking assumes that God is the center of all reality.

Christ calls us to live and die in such a way that we magnify his worth. Anything less is a wasted life.

Only a love sustained by genuine joy in God will propel us to take the gospel to the hardest places in the world.

Pain and suffering exist to make plain the horrors of the sinful heart and the wonders of the sovereign Christ.

Genuine preaching aims to display the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

In the fight for faith, our minds serve our hearts. Right knowledge fuels true passion.

The ultimate goal of the gospel is that God would be glorified in our enjoyment of him. God’s glory and our satisfaction are not two different ends, they’re one.

True Christian education prepares us to enjoy God and love our neighbors even more than it prepares us for the workforce.

The Christian life is a fight. But our deadliest enemy doesn’t attack us from the outside, but from within.

Real love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others, especially when it’s costly.

Christians don’t fly solo. Our faith won’t survive unless brothers and sisters in Christ keep us accountable.

Five hundred years ago, the Reformers fought to recover the true gospel. Fifteen hundred years before, God used Paul to pen the Reformers’ central text for justification by faith alone.

Your joy in God multiplies exponentially as you seek the good of your brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.

God has a place for every single one of us in missions. Some of us send, some of us go, but we must all have a gospel ambition.

The only reason any of us know God is because he chose us before the foundation of the world. Nothing we’ve done can earn our way to him — it’s all grace.

At the end of your life, as your energy fades, God will be your refuge and strength.

The very essence of evil is running to anything but God for ultimate joy. Watch, read, or listen to John Piper’s message from Passion 2017.

We are living in the third great era of world history — the era of the Spirit. Our only hope for advancing God’s mission is to lean on the power of his Spirit.

The true grace of God is given to us in Jesus Christ, who is full of grace and truth.

Satan believes the Scriptures are God’s very words. But the difference between us and him is that he doesn’t treasure that truth.

Christians claim their true citizenship in heaven. When we submit to earthly governments, we do so out of allegiance to Christ’s eternal kingdom.

Christian leaders should exude the Bible. They need to test everything they speak and write through the grid of biblical teaching.

Jesus’s supreme authority empowers his Great Commission. We go, teach, and teach others to teach in the confidence that Jesus himself is with us.

Central to biblical Christianity is the pursuit of our joy in God. John Piper expresses fifteen hopes for the future of maximizing our joy in God.

God’s volcanic passion for his own glory erupts in overflowing delight for his Son and unceasing joy for his children who share in God’s own glorious bliss.

In all true Bible reading, we think and God gives. We work hard to comprehend the authors’ intended meaning while we simultaneously rely on God to help us understand.

Whenever we read the Bible, we depend on God’s supernatural power to illumine the words, sentences, and paragraphs with his glory.

The Bible is indispensable to the Christian life. Without the written word, we simply could not know the Incarnate Word.

Christians embrace both the New Testament and the Old because every single page of the Scriptures points to Jesus who fulfills them.

God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is not the act of a needy ego, but an act of infinite giving.